Friday, May 07, 2010

Media bias, a different perspective

The right wing is operating a super-charged carnival of hype, hysteria and hoopla, while the left struggles along with a pipsqueak sideshow...

To be sure, there are many admirable broadcast voices on the left, in addition to the MSNBC team (of Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow): Thom Hartmann, Amy Goodman, Bill Maher, Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, Mike Papantonio, Cenk Uygur, and Randi Rhodes. But their messages are uncoordinated, dispersed, and poorly promoted. And unlike FOX and Limbaugh, etc., there is almost no corporate media amplification of progressive talk radio and cable TV. Strange to say, some of the most incisive liberal commentary seems to originate with the comedians, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert....

The regressive bias of the corporate media is starkly revealed by the coverage, and the non-coverage, of the public demonstrations of last month. When a couple of thousand tea-party or gun-rights enthusiasts show up on the Mall in Washington, or across the Potomac in Virginia, the mainstream media is there to cover them en masse. But when up to ten thousand protesters gather on Wall Street, or fifty thousand jam downtown Los Angeles to protest the Arizona “show your papers” law, these events might just as well have taken place on the far side of the moon.

What to do about this? Partridge has some proposals.

Posted at 09:26:37 AM

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Well, at least his funding mechanism is consistent: shake down the wealthy.

This is pretty lame. He dredges up very stale "inaccuracies." It's just not true that Olbermann is meticulous about correcting himself. Newsbusters.org constantly documents instances where he does not. Same for Maddow.

The notion that the mainstream media favors right-wing rallies is laughable. The Times regularly has given big play to antiwar and pro-immigrant rallies, which are always described as peaceable gatherings of families waving US flags. When they are violent, as they have been recently, they are described as "mostly peaceful," whereas the Tea Party rallies, which actually have been peaceful, are described as menacing, scary affairs. I don't remember any of that during some of the truly scary left-wing protests during the Bush years. A huge annual anti-abortion rally in DC is routinely ignored by the the Times and the networks. The New York Times ran two different stories about four immigrants who were walking up the East Coast to protest immigration policy.

And what is so corporate-controlled about Rush Limbaugh? He's on everywhere because he has millions of listeners so that sponsors want to pay to reach them. The left seems unable to deal with the fact that in radio, you need an audience to get on the air.

I have noticed that when the left complains about media bias, it tends to be vague and banks its case on the notion that because the networks and other mainstream outlets are owned by corporations, they are conservative and in business to screw the people. My god, the networks were Obama's biggest cheerleaders. MSNBC is owned by a corporation. Go to a conservative site like TimesWatch.org and you will see not a thundering rant against the motives of the New York Times, but a rather surgical demonstration of its biases and inconsistencies--how it freely labels people and organizations "conservatives," "right wing," and "far right" but it almost never calls an individual politician a liberal, seldom gets specific about who is on "the left," how conservatives are always angry, howling in outrage, etc.

Finally, one of his proposals just made me laugh outright: move to make university professors more liberal. Yeah, if there is one place where the right has things locked up, it's college faculties.

The reason for the "imbalance" is obvious. Media corporations like Murdoch's (Fox's) Newscorp are Big Corporations. Management of Big Corporations are conservative by nature - they're going to put their dough behind a message that (1) will make them money, and (2) aligns with their own political predilictions. Even if the bright lights of the progressive/liberal viewpoint could be gathered together (as on Fox), there are few Big Corporations willing to put the financial muscle behind such a venture - because it runs contrary the the viewpoints of the Big Corporations' executives. What is surprising is that MSNBC has gained any real financial backing at all (i.e., GE/NBC).

Now, if MSNBC starts to make some REAL money (on a Foxian scale), THEN maybe the Big Corporation capitalists might be willing to hold their noses while they make some money pushing the progressive viewpoint.

Let's look at this another way - Ratings. Fox outdraws MSNBC and even CNN by a country mile these days. Limbaugh has made a fortune and can be heard anywhere in the country over the air, same for Hannity. I assume their ratings dwarf radio America. Perhaps it isn't some organized conspiracy, it's just business. It must pay mor to be a right wing broadcaster.

And for the record, I cannot watch or listen to any of these people, rght or left for more than about 30 seconds with out growing bored to tears, who spends hours listening to these guys?

Ha! It didn't take the NY Times long to live up to my premise. This is from today's paper. Note the numbers of people involved and how many "grannies" are not actual grannies, or women--even though the cute granny angle is ostensibly the reason The Times has given this left-wing group the syrupy treatment on numerous previous occasions:

"The late-afternoon sun was beginning a slow retreat on Wednesday when the grannies took up their positions on Fifth Avenue at the eastern entrance to Rockefeller Center.

As ever, they lined up at curbside. As ever, they unfurled banners and dangled placards from their necks, messages of opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As ever, they stood mostly in silence. Now and again, though, they broke into a chant. “Bring our troops home now,” they cried, pausing before adding, “Alive!”

This was the 330th consecutive Wednesday, going back to Jan. 14, 2004, that the grannies gathered for an hour’s demonstration against America’s wars. Agree with their cause or not, theirs is an unusual record of persistence in an age when attention spans are often measured in seconds.

....

Not all of the 21 people who showed up this past Wednesday were actually grannies. Five were men. A few of the women were relatively young, in their 50s. But most were women of years who belonged to antiwar groups with “grannies” and “grandmothers” in their titles. They wore those words proudly."

"Gain editorial control of mass media outlets: newspapers, cable networks, radio, etc. Once in control, do not make them mere purveyors of left propaganda designed to “balance” the right. Instead, progressive media must restore the practice of responsible journalism: “just the facts” combined with aggressive investigative reporting."

As the left has effective control of NBC, CBS, and ABC, is his point that these networks should return to responsible journalism? If so, I'm all for it.

Every time I hear someone say that "the media is liberal except for FOX" I asked them for proof, and all they can offer is some survey done for the 2008 election that showed a majority of newspaper employees that answered the survey said they voted for Obama. How this automatically means that the whole newspaper, story after story, day after day, is liberal is beyond comprehension.

I want to see real proof that all of the media, without exception, is liberal. I fully expect to be waiting a very long time.

Well, we've got real proof on the Tribune. They endorsed Obama, remember? Kind of like the Republicans' 41% Senate majority, this 2.5% majority of endorsements is irrefutable confirmation that the Trib is liberal, borderline Stalinist even.

Dienne - HUH? I think you missed the fact that I was simply repeating what was said by famed liberal/progressive Earnest Patridge, the writer of the linked story. If you have a problem with what one of your fellow Libs said I suggest you attack him, not me. Why do LIbs hate calling out one of their own while Repubs are more than willing to call out the fringe players in their party?

I hereby declare that all birthers are wackos. Are you willing to say all Trig Palin conspiracy nuts are wackos?

---BC: Here's two examples, that actually deal with the news, not opinion:

1. The CBS News fake "George W. Bush National Guard" letter, which the blogosphere demonstrated was typed using Microsoft Word, and to which CBS owned up only after ABC News exposed it.

2. The ACORN story, which was sloughed off, including by the Tribune, as "a cable news story" until about 3 weeks after FNC broke it. Admittedly, while FNC was complaining that no one else was covering it, CNN did.

You want to see real proof that all of the media, without exception, is liberal? Wow. You will be waiting as long as those who want proof that Fox News is, without exception, conservative. The point is that the majority of people who run and staff ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, etc. are liberal in their political outlook. There are many, many instances where this outlook is reflected in the reporting. Bernard Goldberg's "Bias" does a good job at illustrating this and it might interest you.

By the way, I have a friend who works for News Corp. (Fox's parent) and she tells me that it is mostly staffed by liberals as well. Obviously, the editorial decisions don't reflect the political views of its workers. I think that it's fair to say that more liberals than conservatives are attracted to journalism as a career choice.

Jack (the Real One). Yes the George Bush National Guard letter was fake, but the story was true that Bush ducked out of his National Guard commitment. And there was plenty of other evidence, not faked, that showed the story was true. But then you don't want to hear that, do you. There was no liberal bias involved. It was just investigative reporting at work.

Please, you and every conservative poster here live in an utterly fantasy world that the mainstream media is liberally biased.

How does the liberal bias thing work? The New York Times ran a story about four months after Obama's inauguration detailing how Obama broke his promise of keeping lobbyists out of the White House. The story painted the president in a negative light.

Can someone please explain why the NYT ran this story if the newspaper is in bed with the "messiah"? Also, I believe it was a CNBC correspondent who complained about the president's economic plan and threw a tirade at the CBOT. If you ever tune in to CNBC (I have to because it's always on at my gym) you'll see that all the financial shows have a conservative bent. Why would the liberal NBC parent company allow this stuff to go on the air?

"Here you have a major news outlet telling a canidate what to say, what issues to camaign on or they won't cover the race."

No. Here you have a major news outlet telling a candidate that it doesn't intend to act as his stenographer, limiting coverage of the race to Kirk's spin about Broadway Bank when there are other issues to address as well. What part of "consistently" and "only" don't you understand?

CBS 2 will continue to report on the Kirk and Giannoulias campaigns all the way to November. And, we will continue to report on any new developments involving the failed Broadway Bank.

However, CBS 2 will also challenge the candidates to talk about MANY important issues, beyond the failed Broadway
Bank, facing citizens of Illinois.

So, what's the issue? CBS didn't say that it wouldn't run any ads that either campaign produces on Broadway Bank. All they said is they are not going to send their team to cover either candidate if the only topic is Broadway Bank.

CBS is trying to dictate what they will or will not cover according to their terms.They are there to cover the campaign as it unfolds not as they would like i to unfold.. I beleve its called reporting the facts not influencing the campaign by threatening to withhold coverage. Who are they to judge the tone of the debate? Who are they to say, "you have said enough about this?" I thought that was the job of the reader or viewer. The job of the reporter is to report it.

@jk and Rita. The passage you are both referencing was a clarification of how CBS would continue to cover the campaign. Neither reporter questioning Kirk at the time stated anything close to the statement made by CBS on this matter. It was the exact opposite They stated: "...we will not continue to cover the campaign. It's pretty sad when company has to reiterate to the public a basic job description on how a news orgnization does its job.

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"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
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Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.